Easter Monday

Today is Easter Monday. The whole concept of Easter Monday is just strange to me on several levels. To wit: I may not be a theology expert, but didn't Christ return from the dead on a Sunday?

It's also strange to see Easter "celebrated" in a city like Hong Kong. Perhaps 10% of the local Chinese population is Christian. The strongest Christian influence in Hong Kong isn't the churches, but the school system. A majority of children attend Catholic and Anglican schools, not government schools. Yet for all of this religious education, there are virtually no signs of Easter on the streets. No Easter Egg hunts at the parks. No Easter Egg kits or chocolate bunnies at the local supermarket. No "sit on the Easter Bunny's lap" at Pacific Place mall. Certainly, no one was dressed up in their Easter finest this weekend!

So then why is it a legal holiday here? And for four days? Good Friday and Easter Monday became legal holidays here during British rule. When China took over colonial responsibilites from Britain in 1997, explicitly British holidays were replaced by Chinese holidays. For instance, the Queen's Official Birthday was replaced by National Day, the day Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic. While Christian holidays were no longer statuatory holidays -- that is, private employers don't have to give their employees the day off -- Easter still remains a legal four-day holiday. So for students like me, it's still a holiday!

So the question remains, "How do people celebrate Easter in Hong Kong?" The answer: "The same way Americans celebrate legal holidays like Martin Luther King day. Travel!" Of course, while Wall Street stockbrokers crowd Vermont ski slopes on MLK weekend, Hongkongers prefer crowding the casinos in Macau. Half a million people (almost 10% of HK's population) passed through border control on Good Friday alone.

hello? is it me you're looking for?

In a multitude of ways, my habits don't conform to those of the typical Hong Kong resident. But last night, I decided to rid myself of the one habit that drove my HK friends up the wall. Yes, I finally bought a mobile phone.

It is an oft-repeated maxim that Hong Kong people are crazy about their mobiles. A higher percentage of Hong Kong residents use cell phones than of any other country in Asia. The number of mobile phone subscribers (8 million) is higher than Hong Kong's population (6.9 million)! The phones available in Hong Kong are more advanced than those available in the US. Mobile phones are ever-present in Hong Kong: they are the essential accessory for teenagers to wear around their neck -- and for adults to have glued to their ear. As a result, rules regarding phone etiquette are more relaxed here. Want to use your phone on a crowded bus or subway? Join the crowd! In a library? Hey, just use one of the mobile phone areas by the elevator. In a movie theater? That's what SMS is for!

Even in Boston, I was not a fan of having a "cell". My first phone was a gift from my family: my car at that time broke down at least once a month, so I needed a phone to call AAA regularly. Then living with three roommates, two of whom were women, two of whom used dial-up internet -- for some reason, the home phone was always busy. (Go figure...) Once I moved to Hong Kong, having no car and no Internet-surfing roommates, I figured I had no need for a mobile phone. The people I've met here disagreed with that. The hints about how "difficult it has been to get hold of" me have been growing less and less subtle. A couple pointed comments about how cheap it would be for me to buy a mobile phone at Worldwide House finally convinced me.

Worldwide House is a small mall in Central District catering to Filipinos, and thus to English speakers. This is important: I didn't want to buy a phone with aggressive sellers shouting super-fast Cantonese. I didn't want to deal with contracts -- and a phone -- that only used Chinese. I didn't want to be tied into a two-year commitment, as is typical in the US. So I bought a Nokia 3100. It has none of the bells and whistles of Hong Kong cell phones: no 3G, no camera, no MP3 player, no FM radio, no Bluetooth. It's my first non-flip phone. But it's a pay-as-you-go phone, it's small, and it was cheap. I'm happy. Just don't expect to see me wearing it around my neck!

...just give me that countryside.

The past few weeks in Hong Kong have been grey, damp, and cool. London weather, basically. When the sun finally came out yesterday, I decided I had to do something outdoorsy. What do typical urbanites on Hong Kong Island do when they hear the call of the "great outdoors"? (Well, besides jamming their iPod headphones deeper into their ear...) Get on the subway and head to the New Territories!

The New Territories is a vast area seperating Hong Kong Island and Kowloon from the border to mainland China. Traditionally, it was an area of rice paddies, fishing villages, and mountains. This has only changed in the past 25 years. The government, to relieve the overcrowding of Kowloon and HK Island, has built out transport links and established 'suburban settlements' in certain parts of the New Territories. These really aren't suburbs in the American sense: we're talking miniature cities of high-rise towers clustered around subway stops in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, they look about as appealing as they sound.

My first stop was the Sam Tung Uk museum in the 'suburb' of Tsuen Wan. Back when Tsuen Wan was a farming village, the local indigenous Chinese lived in walled compounds. Each clan had their own compound. Sam Tung Uk is a preserved walled compound, complete with furnishings and explanatory material. Visiting the compound really brings home some of the traditional Chinese beliefs I've been taught in class. For instance, with so many relatives living in the same compound, respect for family takes on a whole new meaning! And since one lived in the compound of the father's relatives and not the mother's, different (more respectful) terms of address were used for the father's relatives than with the mother's relatives. This even holds true in contemporary Cantonese.

After visiting the museum, I hopped on a minibus to see some real countryside. Ten minutes out of Tsuen Wan is Shing Mun Country Park. Again, we're not talking about an US National Park here. A better analogy would be to Blue Hills Reservation on Boston's southern border: the scenery may not be world-class, but it is a bit of nature easily accessible to the urban masses. The main hiking trail wound around an old reservoir built by the colonial government in the 1930s. It was an enjoyable, three-hour hike. It was the first time I had seen macaques. These small monkeys hang out mainly at picnic sites along the trail. Reminded me of squirrels for some reason. I wouldn't call it a breath of fresh air -- Hong Kong is way too polluted for that -- but seeing green forest definitely was a nice change from the concrete jungle.